nged to know, and with him I took up my abode.

"Abou al Phadre was an old man, and not one whom the ladies would
love--that is, for his face, for it was yellow and wrinkled; his eyes,
too, were almost buried in their cavernous sockets, and shaded by bushy
white eyebrows. Those who love the higher powers, however, and can
respect the divine power of knowledge, would have knelt at Abou's feet.

"This wonderful man had a daughter born to him in his old age, born,
too, with the same love for truth, the same thirst for a knowledge of
things unseen to the ordinary eye. So much was this so, that she was
called 'Ilfra the Understanding One.' As the years went on she
outstripped her father, and obtained a knowledge of that for which her
father had unsuccessfully studied all his life.

"When Kaffar and I entered this village, she was nearly twenty years of
age, and was fair to look upon. It was rarely she spoke to me, however,
for she dwelt with the unseen and talked with the buried dead. Abou, on
the other hand, was kind to me, and taught me much, and together we
tried to find out what for years he had been vainly searching. What that
secret was I will not tell. Only those who live in the atmosphere of
mystery can think rightly about what lies in the mind and heart of the
true magician.

"As I before hinted, 'Ilfra the Understanding One' had found out the
secret; her soul had outsoared that of her father and of all the sages
for many miles around, and she would have revealed her knowledge both to
her father and to me, but for one thing. Seven is a perfect number, and
all the Easterns take it into consideration, and it is a law that no one
shall reveal a secret that they may have found until three times seven
years pass over their heads. Thus it was, while we eagerly sought for
the mysterious power I have mentioned, we were buoyed up by the hope
that, though we might not be successful, Ilfra would reveal to us what
we desired to know."

"And thus the time passed on until we reached Ilfra's twenty-first
birthday, with the exception of seven days. Both Abou and I were glad at
heart; for although the secret, to me, would be as nothing compared to
what it would be to him, yet I could put it to some use, while, to him,
it would dispel distance, time, and physical life. Through it the
secrets of astronomer and astrologer would be known, while the pages of
the past would lie before him like an open book.

"Judge his anguish then,